EXCLUSIVE: Van Sciver Art Debuts New Firestorms

Yesterday, CBR spoke with "The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men" co-writers Joe Harris and Ethan Van Sciver about the title's new storyline which kicks off later this month in issue #7. The arc, which features Van Sciver filling in as artist before regular series artist Yildiray Cinar returns with issue #9, is titled "The Firestorm Protocols" and will greatly expand the scope of the Firestorm world, introducing a number of Firestorms from nations around the world.

Today, DC has provided CBR with an exclusive look at Van Sciver's art from next month's "Fury of the Firestorms" #8, featuring what appears to be Britain's Firestorm, a hero known as Hurricane, and the New 52's updated Firehawk, traditionally Firestorm's romantic interest and now France's Firestorm representative.

"What we're really going to get into is how dangerous and how harrowing the concepts of these Firestorm Protocols being out in the world really can be," Harris told CBR. "We're going to be exploring more of the countries that actually have an officially sanctioned Firestorm, and to that end, we imagined all the current members of the global nuclear arms club as having an official hero. We're going to be getting to each and every one of them as we go. We're going to be meeting Firestorms from Great Britain and France -- wait until you see what we've done with India's Firestorm! There's some really awesome variations on the powers and the costumes and the appearance and the manifestations and everything."

"I always felt like Firestorm was a team member. He was a character who did well on his own in his own book, but he always just seemed to be a member of the Justice League. He would just be floating around," Van Sciver added, explaining that his and Harris goal was to build the importance of the character -- or characters -- in the new DC Universe. "I like the idea of Firestorm himself, of the concept being much bigger and much broader and much more important. I think the internationals help to elevate Ronnie and Jason a little bit, so the story is bigger, it's more important."